Nearly a half century ago, Olana was almost destroyed. Olana Preservation, a group of concerned art historians, preservationists and individuals living in the Hudson Valley and New York City, joined forces to save Frederic Church’s three-dimensional masterpiece. A LIFE Magazine article entitled “Must This Mansion Be Destroyed?” brought national attention to the campaign and ensured the venture’s success. In 1966 Olana Preservation and New York State partnered to purchase Olana and establish it as a state historic site. This collaborative effort has provided a standard of excellence for the preservation of this national treasure— moving well beyond “the mansion” to undertake major restoration projects throughout the 250-acre designed landscape.

Since 1966, when Olana was saved from being sold and the collection dispersed at auction, The Olana Partnership (the descendant of Olana Preservation) and New York State have worked together in an extraordinary public-private partnership, investing millions of dollars and countless hours of staff and volunteer hours to preserve Olana. Life after LIFE: Preserving Olana discussed past and future projects to restore the landscape, the farm complex, the house, and the collections—all critical elements of the integrated artistic and personal environment that Church spent four decades creating. We invite our visitors to join the campaign to preserve Church’s last and arguably most enduring work of art, Olana.

Olana was designed by Church to include a farm complex, orchards, meadows, parkland, a native woodland, a man-made lake, and a Persian-inspired house, all connected by five miles of carriage roads that offer spectacular views of the Hudson River valley. On view for the first time was the 1886 Plan of Olana by artist’s son Fredric Joseph, which illustrates Church’s vision for his property. Future restoration efforts will include the revival of Church’s ornamental and working farm.

The first piece of property that Church purchased in 1860 was a working farm—and Church maintained the working portion of the estate throughout his lifetime. By the 1960s many of the farm buildings were in disrepair and some had been lost. Focused preservation of the farm area began in 2006 with the restoration of the Churches’ first home, Cosy Cottage, nestled in the farm complex. Church’s only oil sketch of the building, shown in the exhibition, aided in the recreation of a missing wing. The extant barns are being preserved and missing buildings are being re-created. The Wagon House was recreated in 2008 using historic surveys, archeological evidence and historic photographs. The vantage point from atop Crown Hill, one of Church’s great landscape features, provides views over Olana’s historic farm complex.

The exhibition further explored the extensive efforts to preserve the Olana viewshed. Church designed both the landscape and the house to frame the views. Thousands of visitors come every year to admire the unparalleled views toward four states. Olana works with Scenic Hudson, the Columbia Land Conservancy, The Open Space Institute, and neighbors to preserve the historic viewshed for future generations. To date more than 2,000 acres have been protected.

A multi-year project to restore the main house began in 2001. The entire stone façade was re-pointed, broken slates on the bell tower were restored and replaced, the windows and doors were painted and decorative cornice stencils were recreated. Inside the house paintings, furniture, textiles and decorative objects have been preserved. All these projects help convey the richness of Church’s original vision and intent for the decoration and displays of the rooms within his home. Other projects are less visible but imperative to preservation. In 2006 a state-of-the-art fire detection and suppression system was installed. In addition to safeguarding the house and collections, the system allowed for the opening of the second floor, enabling visitors to tour the Churches bedroom, dressing room and to open a new space for annual exhibitions: the Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery.

Organized and supported by The Olana Partnership and the Bureau of Historic Sites, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

This exhibition was made possible through the generous support of:
Jazz and Christopher Merton
TD Bank
Eli Wilner & Co., New York
Romancing the Woods
Stark Carpet
and the following:
Mr. and Mrs. Brock Ganeles
The Olana Partnership Exhibition Fund
Richard T. Sharp
Susan Winokur and Paul Leach

The Trustees and staff of The Olana Partnership wish to recognize the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo; New York State Office of Parks,Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Rose Harvey; Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation Ruth Pierpont; Former Director of the Bureau of Historic Sites John Lovell; Current Acting Director of the Bureau of Historic Sites Mark Peckham; Regional Director,Taconic Region Linda Cooper; Olana Site Manager Kimberly Flook; Lewis Gleason, Architectural Conservator, Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, Inc.; Ryan Scott, Pro-Printers; the staff at the New State Parks Conservation Center, Peebles Island; and Robert Hills and the Taconic Region Restoration Crew for preparing the exhibition gallery.

Additional support was provided by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency.

We are particularly grateful to John Lovell for all of his assistance with this exhibition.

Two weeks before the scheduled debut of Hudson River School landscape painter Frederic Church’s masterwork The Icebergs, Fort Sumter was bombarded marking the start of the American Civil War. Instead of cancelling the unveiling of the painting at Goupil’s Gallery, Church re-titled his masterpiece: “The North” Church’s Picture of Icebergs showing his support for the northern cause.

Church also pledged exhibition fees to assist the Union’s Patriotic Fund for the families of Union soldiers. Less than a month later, in further support, and in response to the patriotic fever that swept the North, in May 1861 Church painted “Our Banner in the Sky” – a sunrise resembling a Union Flag. The image became a popular chromolithograph issued by Goupil & Co. 2011 marked the Sesquicentennial of the fall of Fort Sumter and the start of the Civil War. Olana’s exhibition examined Church’s reaction to the conflict as an artist and how events involving his friends and colleagues affected him personally. The exhibition included: 4 oil sketches by Church; 2 pencil sketches by Church; 2 chromolithographs after Church; and works by Isaac Hayes and John Jameson.

In conjunction with the exhibition, “Rally ‘Round the Flag: Frederic Edwin Church and the Civil War,” Dr. Kevin J. Avery wrote a wonderful essay related to the exhibition for the academic journal The Hudson River Valley Review, a publication of the Hudson River Valley Institute (HRVI) at Marist College. The journal is available for sale at The Olana Museum Store, or through HRVI. To learn more about HRVI or to obtain a copy through subscription, click here. Dr. Avery has also contributed an article on the John S. Jameson section of the exhibition for the August 2011 issue of American Art Review. To read an expanded version of that essay with complete historical references, click here.

The exhibition is funded by The Olana Partnership, the not-for-profit support arm of Olana State Historic Site. Olana, the Churches’ Persian-inspired home and 250-acre designed landscape, is owned and operated by New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

We recognize the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo; New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Rose Harvey; Director of the Division for Historic Preservation Ruth Pierpont; Acting Director of the Bureau of Historic Sites John Lovell; Acting Regional Director, Taconic Region Garrett Jobson; Olana Site Manager Linda McLean; and Olana Interpretative Program Assistant Carri Manchester.

We are also grateful to The Olana Partnership’s Curator Evelyn D. Trebilcock and Associate Curator Valerie A. Balint for organizing the exhibition, Archivist/Librarian Ida Brier for her research and curatorial interns Nina Heath and Julianna White for their assistance. We thank Vice President for Development Robert Burns; Director of Administration and Public Affairs Nelson Sterner and Executive Assistant Mary Curran. The exhibition is greatly enriched by generous loans from the private collections of Anonymous (two), Laura and David Grey, and Richard T. Sharp.

For their assistance with these loans we would like to express our appreciation to Patricia Everett, Laura and David Grey, Betty Krulik, Loie and Alex Acevedo, and Frederic W. Lapham III.

For their advice, support, and encouragement of the exhibition and the accompanying publication, we want to recognize the Olana Curatorial Advisory Committee. We hope that this brochure will serve to enlighten readers about the collections at Olana as well as Church’s artistic career and those of his friends during the Civil War long after the exhibition closes. It would not have been possible without a significant donation by New York Press & Graphics. We thank Dr. Kevin J. Avery for his wonderful essay and acknowledge Elaine Koss and Lory Frankel for their thoughtful editing and proofreading.

Photographs by Brandt Bolding

Brandt Bolding’s photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the northeastern part of the U.S. and have appeared in newspapers, journals, and publications by various preservation organizations in New York State. He became interested in historic preservation in the course of his architectural and interior design work, photographing and recording historical architectural details. This interest evolved into preservation and photographic documentation of the historic agricultural structures and farms in his home state of New York, specifically the Hudson, Mohawk, and Schoharie River valleys. He has traveled extensively in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine, photographing the farms, barns, and agricultural communities there as well. He is the son-in-law of the late Ted Croner, renowned New York photographer and protégé of Edward Steichen.

Photos by Larry Lederman

Larry Lederman is a photographer and writer who has traveled to many of the locations Frederic Church visited. This exhibition displayed photographs of a number of sites that Frederic Church painted and sought to evoke his artistic vision and explore his art. The photographs affirmed that many of the wilderness enclaves Church painted still exist, preserved as part of our heritage because of the beauty that he and other nineteenth century painters captured.

In 1865, Frederic Church, an avid traveler with a special passion for the tropics, journeyed to Jamaica. This was unlike his previous expeditions, as he and his wife, Isabel, were escaping from intense personal grief: the loss of their two young children. Throwing himself into the exploration and documentation of the island, the renowned artist produced a variety of works ranging from delicate pen sketches of palm trees to oil sketches of the atmospheric Blue Mountains and brilliant sunsets. The importance of the trip is reflected in the number of studies Church chose to mount, frame, and display at Olana, which became a major attraction for visitors to his home. The best of the related sketches and paintings from Jamaica comprised the exhibit.

We thank the following for their help with this exhibition: New York State Governor David A. Paterson; New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Carol Ash; Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation J. Winthrop Aldrich; Regional Director, Taconic Region, Jayne McLaughlin; and at Olana State Historic Site, Site Manager Linda E. McLean and Interpretive Programs Assistant Carri Manchester. We are also grateful to The Olana Partnership staff members: Curator Evelyn D. Trebilcock; Associate Curator Valerie A. Balint; Librarian/Archivist Ida Brier; Curatorial Interns Alexandra Anderson and Danielle Swanson; President Sara Griffen; Vice President for Development Robert Burns; Director of Administration and Public Affairs Nelson Sterner; and Executive Assistant Mary Curran.

For providing their thoughts on Church and his fellow painters in Jamaica and the tropics, we thank Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser and Katherine E. Manthorne. We appreciate Anthony Johnson’s lovely foreword, where he shares his perspective on Church, Jamaica, and the wonderful ferns that inhabit his island. For managing the loan and preparing the paintings, photographs, and printed material for display and photographic materials for this publication, we are grateful to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Peebles Island Resource Center staff: Acting Director for the Bureau of Historic Sites John Lovell; Director of the Division for Historic Preservation Ruth Pierpont; Collections Manager Anne Ricard Cassidy and her staff Erin Czernecki, Ronna Dixson, and Mary Zaremski; Former Curator Robin Campbell, Curator Susan Walker, and Assistant Curator Amanda Massie; Paper Conservator Michele Phillips; Frames Conservator Eric Price; and Paintings Conservator Joyce Zucker.

The accompanying catalogue, which serves to enlighten readers about the collections at Olana, the adventures of Frederic and Isabel Church, and the lure of Jamaica long after the exhibition closes, would not have been possible without early support from Henry and Sharon Martin; and the guidance of Ed Marquand and his staff at Marquand Books.

For their continued support of Olana publications we are grateful to Cornell University Press, especially John Ackerman and his staff. We acknowledge Lory Frankel for her thoughtful editing of the essays and careful attention to the proofs. For supporting
images we thank: John Benicewicz at Art Resource, New York; Jonathan Boos; Kayla Carlsen at Christie’s; Elizabeth Saluk at The Cleveland Museum of Art; Jacquelann Killian and Chuck Kim at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian
Institution; Fiona Bradley at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Richard Manoogian; Cheryl Robledo at the Manoogian Collection; Susan Grinols at the Museums of Fine Arts, San Francisco; Meghan Mazzela at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Franklin Kelly, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Eleanor Gillers and Jill Slaight at the New-York Historical Society; Private Collection; Chloe Richfield, Director, and Louis M. Salerno, Owner, Questroyal Fine Art, LLC; Mike Ramos; and Erin Monroe and Allen Phillips at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. For contemporary images of Olana included here, we thank photographers Kurt Dolnier, Carri Manchester, and Nicholas Whitman.

Finally, we wish to thank the generous individual and institutional donors that provided the necessary funds that have made this important book and exhibition possible: David Kabiller; the Lois H. and Charles A. Miller Foundation, Inc.; the Terra Foundation; Jack Warner Fund for Creativity and Innovation; and the Olana Exhibition Fund.

The site is the result of a careful study of the river-banks, and commands so many views of varied beauty, that all the glories of the Hudson may be said to circle it. – H. W. French, Art and Artists in Connecticut, 1879.

In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed up the river that now bears his name. This exhibition marked the Quadricentennial of his discovery by highlighting Frederic Church’s sketches of the prospect from his hilltop home overlooking the river.

Church made his first sketch of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains from Red Hill – the south end of the property that became Olana – in 1845, on a sketching expedition suggested by his teacher Thomas Cole. Returning to the Valley in 1860 as the nation’s most famous and best-paid artist, Church settled on a farm on the lower slope of the Sienghenbergh, securing for himself and his new wife a splendid vantage point for studying, sketching, and painting the river. Church continued to add land to his property, attaining new and varied vistas of the river. He crowned the estate with a Persian inspired house designed to frame splendid views of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains.

Church never tired of his views of the river, documenting his passion for the Hudson in paintings, oil sketches, and drawings. From Olana, he observed the transformations wrought by the changing seasons, weather, and light, capturing chilly winter snows, brilliant sunsets, and passing storms in sketches executed with a few brush strokes or autumn colors and clear winter light in more finished easel paintings. Often Church was so pleased with the results that he mounted and framed sketches for display in his home. At other times they remained as personal references in the many portfolios of sketches the artist kept for his own private viewing and remembrance.

This inaugural exhibition of the Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery featured a full-color, hardcover catalogue published by Cornell University Press and The Olana Partnership, with an essay by curator Evelyn Trebilcock and associate curator Valerie Balint, an introduction by Kenneth John Myers, Curator of American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and a forward by John K. Howat, Church scholar and former Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of the Departments of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We thank the following for their help with this exhibition: New York State Governor David A. Paterson; New York State O‹ce of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Carol Ash; Director of New York State Parks Taconic Region Jayne McLaughlin; and at Olana State Historic Site, Site Manager Linda McLean and Interpretive Programs Assistant Carri Manchester. We are also grateful to The Olana Partnership staff members: Curator Evelyn Trebilcock; Associate Curator Valerie Balint; Librarian/Archivist Ida Brier; Curatorial Intern Alyson Mazzone; President Sara Griffen; Vice President for Development Robert Burns; Director of Administration and Public Affairs Nelson Sterner; and Executive Assistant Mary Curran.

For providing their thoughts on painters in the Hudson Valley, we thank John K. Howat for his lovely foreword and Kenneth Myers for his thoughtful introduction.

For managing the loan and preparing the paintings, photographs, and printed material for display and photographic materials for this publication, we are grateful to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Peebles Island Resource Center: Former Director James Gold; Acting Director John Lovell; Collections Manager Anne Ricard Cassidy and her staff Erin Czernecki, Ronna Dixson, and Mary Zaremski; Curators Robin Campbell and Susan Walker; Paper Conservator Michele Phillips; Frames Conservator Eric Price; and Paintings Conservator Joyce Zucker.

The catalogue, which will serve to bring the story of Olana and Church’s view of the Hudson Valley to new audiences long after the exhibition closes, would not have been possible without early support from Henry and Sharon Martin; a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund; and the guidance of Ed Marquand and his staff at Marquand Books. For their continued support of Olana publications we are grateful to Cornell University Press, especially John Ackerman and his staff. For supporting images we thank: Allison Munsell at the Albany Institute of History and Art; Selina Bartlett at Allen Memorial Art Gallery, Oberlin College; Melissa McCready at the Baltimore Museum of Art; Trevor R. Weight at Brigham Young University Museum of Art; Patricia King at Colby College Museum of Art; Jill Bloomer at the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution; Ila Furman at the Corcoran Gallery of Art; Elizabeth Weinman at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Helena Grubesic at Debra Force Fine Art; Sylvia Inwood at the Detroit Institute of Arts; Marshall Field; Joel Garzoli at Garzoli Gallery; Colleen K. Zorn at A. J. Kollar Fine Paintings; Jamieson Bunn at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Clara Pyo at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Joanna Hanna at Springfield Museums; and Charles Hilburn at The Westervelt Company. For the = contemporary images of Olana included we thank photographers Len Jenshel, Stan Ries, Andy Wainwright, and Nicholas Whitman.

Finally, we wish to thank the generous individual and institutional donors that provided the necessary funds that have made this important book and exhibition possible: anonymous; Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund; Mr. and Mrs. Brock Ganeles; Frederick D. and Eileen Hill; Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commission; Mark LaSalle; Paul Leach and Susan Winokur; Henry and Sharon Martin;The New York State Council on the Arts Museum Program; Open Space Institute, Inc. Barnabas McHenry Award; Eileen Patrick and Jeffrey Ervine; Lou Salerno, Questroyal Fine Art; and Richard T. Sharp.

Landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church

Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900) was probably the most renowned American artist of the Civil War era. Trained by Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painters, and stimulated by the writings of the famed explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, Church early demonstrated immense talent and global curiosity. He traveled extensively, and in his New York City studio painted monumental pictures of subjects in North and South America, the sub-Arctic, Europe, and the Near East. From the late 1850s to the 1870s, he displayed his most ambitious canvases as quasi-theatrical events, drawing thousands of people in America and Great Britain to his exhibitions, and marketing many of his works in fine engravings and lithographs.

Church amassed wealth sufficient to design and build a large estate, called Olana, in upstate New York for himself and his family, and his prominence was such that in 1870 he was both elected a founding trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and appointed to the Board of the New York City Parks Commission. Though his reputation subsequently faded, Church and his art enjoyed an enthusiastic revival in the second half of the twentieth century. His works now enhance the collections of museums throughout the United States and in Europe, and have been the subject of many exhibitions.

As striking in their way as any of Church’s major paintings are his small oil studies and sketches, many executed wholly or partly in the field and several in the studio as designs for the major works. During his residence at Olana, Church framed many of those pictures, including a few large paintings, expressly for presentation in his home, and over a hundred others remain preserved there. Treasures from Olana represents a small selection of the finest of Church’s sketches and studies from the house—most of them he is known to have displayed on its walls—as well as Olana’s most important large painting, El Khasné, Petra. In 1875 he made El Khasné a gift to his wife, Isabel, and installed it over the fireplace in the Sitting Room.

In The Temple of The Self:
The Artist’s Residence As a Total Work of Art Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany

November 20, 2013, March 2, 2014

Olana loaned five works to the exhibition In the Temple of the Self: The Artist’s Residence as a Total Work of Art presented by the Museum Villa Stuck, Munich. Olana is one of twenty artist homes highlighted in the exhibition and one of only three representing the United States. The artist’s homes were chosen as the supreme examples of the ideas, styles and eras they represent from 1800 to 1948; and because the residences rank among their creators’ most important works.